I understand the rationale between the vertical orientation and the title, but levitating isn't something I associate with leaves or a message I'd get from seeing the photo without the caption. The title would make more sense for a photo of a spinning eddy of air pulling a bunch of leaves into the air, or blown up by a person with a leaf blower seen out of focus in the background. In other words to pull off the story implied by the title it would work better if the source of the levitation was seen, because levitation isn't something normally associated with leaves in the Fall.

Slap me up side the head for being a literal non-artistic ENTP, but I can't think of a more perfect metaphor for Fall than this shot rotated CWW 90° to create the zen-like simplicity of a Japanese garden with the image of a single falling leaf...

Although a vertical leaf seems visually odd, falling horizontal seems also odd. Consider whether a small angle off horizontal may be more appealing. Also note the visual potential of a less centered subject.

Well I kind of chose levitation for the title because that what it appeared the leaf was doing. It was literaly hanging in space. What casused that? It was caught on some "anchor lines" for a spider web. I thought I had some more shots where the lines were visible but I can't see to find them. Anyway I definately appreciate the comments. Thanks..

1) Yes.
2) Whoooosh; plus the faint sound of tiny bug screams as the cling to the leaf for dear life.

I like the way Karen's tilting at an angle better conveys the motion downward and also works for me in that regard, but at an angle the stem seems a bit straighter and I don't see the pattern of the curves I liked as strongly because they don't play off the horizontal reference of the frame in the same way when tilted.

I considered tilting they but found the leaving it horizontal created a contrast between the imagined horizon and the compound curve patterns vein and edges of the leaf. I like compound curves and was also thinking more along the lines of frozen moment, static rock in a sea of pebbles than conveying a sense of motion except by putting it on top with a lot of space under it to convey where it was heading. It lower near the bottom adding a motion blur on leaf similar to 2nd curtain sync flash blur trails (conveying where it had come from) but couldn't get it to look realistic and scrapped the idea.

When shooting something moving like that I rarely freeze it completely because while it is neat on a technical level to stop motion blur is a better way to convey that something is moving. For example with hummingbird or dragonfly if you freeze the wings....

All are equally valid approaches. The same content presented with different slants... pardon the pun... will just create different impressions: levitating, slow languid descent to death on the forest floor, or a rapid death spiral.

D5100 Dude wrote:
Well I kind of chose levitation for the title because that what it appeared the leaf was doing. It was literaly hanging in space. What casused that? It was caught on some "anchor lines" for a spider web. I thought I had some more shots where the lines were visible but I can't see to find them. Anyway I definately appreciate the comments. Thanks..

That's what I meant about context -- you knew the reason for the orientation from your in person experience but the photo didn't convey it leaving me thinking it a rather odd orientation...

Had it been seen suspended on the spider silk it wound have made more sense but then the better title would have been something like "Hanging on a thead.." (suspended down not levitated up)

I like it. It is quite original. I don't think I've ever complained about bokeh before, but looks like you were shooting through/against a fence /screen? Maybe blur the background out to get rid of that pattern.